Bring Consumers Into the Energy Equation

CAFE has, indeed, fixed the industrial side of the equation. But by completely ignoring the consumer side, it has done something else. It substantially has reduced the cost of driving. Thus, we have increased technical fuel efficiency plus the cheapest gasoline in the developed world yielding increased vehicle miles driven yielding increased consumer demand for more horsepower, comfort and safety to drive those vehicles longer distances yielding increased overall national fuel consumption.

The 2007 edition of "Gasoline and the American People," produced by Cambridge Energy Research Associates, puts it this way: "Americans have been driving farther -- 40 percent more than 25 years ago -- and using more gasoline in bigger, more powerful cars and other light-duty vehicles."

The only thing that has curbed America's thirst for more and more fuel is higher gasoline prices, according to the CERA report. From 1990 to 2004, the growth in America's demand for gasoline proceeded at an annual rate of 1.6 percent, the report says. But it fell to an annual growth rate of 0.3 percent when gasoline prices spiked above $3 per gallon in 1975 and grew slowly to 1 percent in 2006 when gasoline prices began to fall.

I have spoken to automotive executives representing every global car company. All of them, including those from fuel-economy leader Honda, privately say that higher fuel taxes would help to protect their multibillion-dollar investments in more fuel-efficient technologies. They won't say the same thing publicly for the same reason Congress won't do the right thing and work both sides of the energy conservation equation. "It is not politically feasible," they say.

Sitting here in the cradle of American liberty, that strikes me as a pathetically odd and morally inept excuse.

Was it politically feasible for us to declare our independence from Britain?

Was it politically feasible to end American slavery?

Was it politically feasible to enfranchise the American woman?

When did we become a nation wedded to doing only what is politically feasible?

And why is it now more politically feasible to send our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husband and wives to foreign soil to fight and die for oil than it is for us to place higher taxes on the stuff at home to help reduce our wanton use of it?

It's time to tell Congress that we're not stupid, not hopelessly blind or irrevocably self-centered. It's time to demand that Congress give us a real energy policy, one that addresses industry and consumers, one that demands we do what we've historically done in times of crises -- work together, sacrifice together to solve the problem.